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Esbern 15

Name

Summary

Esbern 15 was a small landowners in north-east Lincolnshire whose single manor was assessed at under 3½ carucates and worth £3.

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire	Phil. ref.	Vill	DB Spelling	Holder 1066	Lord 1066	Tenant-in-Chief 1086	1086 Subtenant	Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value	Conf.	Show on Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 3,16	Vill Covenham St Mary	DB Spelling Esbern	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Covenham St Mary'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham	1086 Subtenant unnamed monks of Saint-Calais	Fiscal Value 2.50	1066 Value 3.00	1086 Value 4.00	Confidence E	Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 3,17	Vill Skidbrooke	DB Spelling -	Holder 1066 Esbern 'of Covenham St Mary'	Lord 1066 -	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham	1086 Subtenant unnamed monks of Saint-Calais	Fiscal Value 0.88	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence E	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Lord 1066

Shire	Phil. ref.	Vill	DB Spelling	Holder 1066	Lord 1066	Tenant-in-Chief 1086	1086 Subtenant	Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value	Conf.	Show on Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 3,18	Vill Grainthorpe	DB Spelling Esbern	Holder 1066 -	Lord 1066 Esbern	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 0.56	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence E	Map
Shire Lincolnshire	Phil. ref. 3,19	Vill Little Grimsby	DB Spelling Esbern	Holder 1066 -	Lord 1066 Esbern	Tenant-in-Chief 1086 William de Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham	1086 Subtenant -	Fiscal Value 0.25	1066 Value 0.00	1086 Value 0.00	Confidence E	Map
Totals								Fiscal Value	1066 Value	1086 Value

Profile

Esbern 15 had a single manor with a berewick and two parcels of sokeland located within a radius of 4 miles. One of the pieces of sokeland was at Little Grimsby, where Esbern 12 also had sokeland, and it is possible that they were the same man. Esbern 11 and Esbern 13 held in the same part of Lincolnshire and conceivably were also identical.

General remarks applicable to Esbern 11–18. Estates ascribed to Esbern are especially thick on the ground in north Lincolnshire and present great difficulties in identification. Seventeen small or very small holdings were involved, with an average assessment of less than 1 carucate, and at their extremities situated 50 miles apart. It is inconceivable that they belonged to one man. It is also clear from the identifications of Esberns 7–10 that the name was common enough in the Danelaw for a multiplicity of Lincolnshire Esberns to be plausible.

These Lincolnshire estates were held by eight different successors in 1086. All eight had very scattered fiefs in Lincolnshire, none of which was constructed on a geographical basis, thus ruling out the possibility that the properties of a super-Esbern had been divided up for that reason.

We have judged it most likely that each of the tenants-in-chief succeeded to one distinct Esbern, but it is possible that there were fewer, especially in the 15-mile stretch of country between the Wolds and the mouth of the Humber, where the estates concerned clustered and overlapped most densely.